Aster Astir

It launches jets of gas along its poles.
The jets disrupt the inflow of more gas.

Without those jets, the star would grow large,
Too large, ten or a dozen times the sun.

You need just the right jets for just
The right-sized sun to arise. That’s nice.

The size, or let’s call it the mass, adjusts
A star’s brightness and how soon it dies.

That seems about right. How each node
In the undulating waves of all the night

Arises in the first place sets it on course
For how it will go on and when it will end.

If and when you step out in the dark,
If and when you can get good, dry dark

Skies to peer through, check out the stars
Astir and consider how little humans

Might ever have cared about the fine arts
Of prediction without the patterns in them.